Four Myths About Trans Athletes Are Debunked

 The following is from aclu.org:

Below, we debunk four myths about trans athletes using the expertise of doctors, academics, and sports psychologists:

MYTH: The participation of trans athletes hurts cis women.

Many who oppose the inclusion of trans athletes erroneously claim that allowing trans athletes to compete will harm cisgender women. This divide and conquer tactic gets it exactly wrong. Excluding women who are trans hurts all women. It invites gender policing that could subject any woman to invasive tests or accusations of being “too masculine” or “too good” at their sport to be a “real” woman. In Idaho, the ACLU represents two young women, one trans and one cis, both of whom are hurt by the law that was passed targeting trans athletes.

Further, this myth reinforces stereotypes that women are weak and in need of protection. Politicians have used the “protection” trope time and time again, including in 2016 when they tried banning trans people from public restrooms by creating the debunked “bathroom predator” myth. The real motive is never about protection — it’s about excluding trans people from yet another public space. The arena of sports is no different. 

On the other hand, including trans athletes will promote values of non-discrimination and inclusion among all student athletes. As longtime coach and sports policy expert Helen Carroll explains, efforts to exclude subsets of girls from sports, “can undermine team unity and also encourage divisiveness by policing who is ‘really’ a girl.” Dr. Mary Fry adds that youth derive the most benefits from athletics when they are exposed to caring environments where teammates are supported by each other and by coaches. Banning some girls from athletics because they are transgender undermines this cohesion and compromises the wide-ranging benefits that youth get from sports. 

MYTH: Trans athletes’ physiological characteristics provide an unfair advantage over cis athletes.

Women and girls who are trans face discrimination and violence that makes it difficult to even stay in school. According to the U.S. Trans Survey, 22 percent of trans women who were perceived as trans in school were harassed so badly they had to leave school because of it. Another 10 percent were kicked out of school. The idea that women and girls have an advantage because they are trans ignores the actual conditions of their lives.  

Trans athletes vary in athletic ability just like cisgender athletes. “One high jumper could be taller and have longer legs than another, but the other could have perfect form, and then do better,” explains Andraya Yearwood, a student track athlete and ACLU client. “One sprinter could have parents who spend so much money on personal training for their child, which in turn, would cause that child to run faster,” she adds. In Connecticut, where cisgender girl runners have tried to block Andraya from participating in the sport she loves, the very same cis girls who have claimed that trans athletes have an “unfair” advantage have consistently performed as well as or better than transgender competitors. 

“A person’s genetic make-up and internal and external reproductive anatomy are not useful indicators of athletic performance,”according to Dr. Joshua D. Safer. “For a trans woman athlete who meets NCAA standards, “there is no inherent reason why her physiological characteristics related to athletic performance should be treated differently from the physiological characteristics of a non-transgender woman.”

MYTH: Sex is binary, apparent at birth, and identifiable through singular biological characteristics. 

Girls who are trans are told repeatedly that they are not “real” girls and boys who are trans are told they are not “real” boys. Non-binary people are told that their gender is not real and that they must be either boys or girls. None of these statements are true. Trans people are exactly who we say we are. 

There is no one way for women’s bodies to be. Women, including women who are transgender, intersex, or disabled, have a range of different physical characteristics. 

“A person’s sex is made up of multiple biological characteristics and they may not all align as typically male or female in a given person,” says Dr. Safer. Further, many people who are not trans can have hormones levels outside of the range considered typical of a cis person of their assigned sex. 

When a person does not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth, they must be able to transition socially — and that includes participating in sports consistent with their gender identity. According to Dr. Deanna Adkins, excluding trans athletes can be deeply harmful and disruptive to treatment. “I know from experience with my patients that it can be extremely harmful for a transgender young person to be excluded from the team consistent with their gender identity.”

MYTH: Trans students need separate teams.

Trans people have the same right to play sports as anybody else. “For the past nine years,” explains Carroll, “transgender athletes have been able to compete on teams at NCAA member collegiates and universities consistent with their gender identity like all other student-athletes with no disruption to women’s collegiate sports.” 

Excluding trans people from any space or activity is harmful, particularly for trans youth. A trans high school student, for example, may experience detrimental effectsto their physical and emotional wellbeing when they are pushed out of affirming spaces and communities. As Lindsay Hecox says, “I just want to run.”

According to Dr. Adkins, “When a school or athletic organization denies transgender students the ability to participate equally in athletics because they are transgender, that condones, reinforces, and affirms the transgender students’ social status as outsiders or misfits who deserve the hostility they experience from peers.”

Believing and perpetuating myths and misconceptions about trans athletes is harmful. Denying trans people the right to participate is discrimination and it doesn’t just hurt trans people, it hurts all of us.

The ACLU Lists 5 Lies Trump Tells To Get His Border Wall

(This caricature of Liar-In-Chief Donald Trump is by DonkeyHotey.)

Donald Trump seems determined to build an unnecessary wall between Mexico and the United States. He has even shut down integral parts of the government because Congress won't give him the money to build that wall -- a shutdown that is not the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

He can't depend on facts to get his wall, because the facts don't back up a wall being needed. So instead, he has resorted to telling lies, and repeating those lies in the hope that eventually people will believe them.

The ACLU has listed the 5 biggest lies he tells to get his border wall. They are:

Lie 1: Border crossings are at or near an all-time high.

Border crossings are at some of the lowest levels in decades. Trump and his aides fabricate facts and spread misinformation in order to justify many of the president’s false claims about the border, even though the Department of Homeland Security itself reportsdifferently. The Border Patrol’s own statistics show that the number of migrants apprehended at the border last year was the fifth lowest total since 1973.

While the Trump administration has repeatedly cited increased migration from Central America as a national security-based justification for the wall, a majority of these migrants are families and unaccompanied children who voluntarily present themselves to immigration authorities. Indeed, the average Border Patrol agent is apprehending fewer than two people per month, and about 60 percent of these migrants are families and children.

Lie 2: Terrorists are entering the country through the southern border, creating a national security crisis.

Many of the migrants at our southern border are refugees from violence with a right to apply for asylum in the United States. Many are families with young children or children alone. There is no evidence that any terrorist group is sending people through Central America.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was recently called out for making false claims about thousands of supposed terroristsattempting to enter the country through the U.S.-Mexico border. The Justice Department confirmed to NBC News that “no immigrant has been arrested at the southwest border on terrorism charges in recent years.”

Lie 3: The wall would stop gang members.

The Trump administration has claimed that a wall is needed in order to stop gang members from coming into the U.S., but many of these migrants are in fact fleeing gang violence and recruitment in their home countries. We have also seen a pattern where government officials have wrongly labeled young migrants as gang members with false and unsubstantiated claims, hyping the threat of groups like MS-13 and threatening the rights of innocent young people.

Trump is raising the spectre of gangs to spread harmful stereotypes about immigrants, distort and invent numbers of alleged gang members apprehended at the border, and punish the very people who are most affected by gang violence.

Lie 4: The wall would stop drugs from pouring in through the border.

The president likes to suggest that construction of a border wall will help bring an end to drug addiction problems in America.

However, the clear majority of illegal drugs, including opioids, enter through legal ports of entry, and a wall would have no impact on the use of passenger vehicles, boats, planes, and tractor trailers that are primarily used to smuggle drugs.

Lie 5: We need a new wall. 

There are over 650 miles of existing border barriers. A report by the Government Accountability Office found that Trump’s ill-conceived wall plan would waste billions of dollars and might “cost more than projected, take longer than planned, or not fully perform as expected.”

Congress has already approved almost $2 billion to fortify existing border barriers since 2017, and border communities and localofficials have protested Trump’s plans for a 1,000-mile long wall.

It is also unlikely that new barriers will reduce migration, the project’s purported aim: A recent study by Stanford and Dartmouth economists found that the addition of hundreds of miles of border barriers as a result of the 2006 Secure Fence Act barely had any effect on migration. Our recent report, “Death, Damage, and Failure,” details the harms resulting from border walls. The name sums up how destructive and unnecessary Trump’s wall is: We can't let him and his administration lie and extort their way to building any of it.

Public Is Put In Danger By Militarization Of The Police

(This cartoon image is by Ben Garrison at GrrrGraphics.)

The following op-ed is from the website of the ACLU, and was written by Major Neill Franklin (Executive Director of Law Enforcement Action Partnership):

This week, the Trump administration revoked President Obama’s Executive Order 13688, which limited the scope of a federal program that allows state and local police departments to obtain military equipment free of charge – and without oversight or training in how to use it. After spending 34 years as a police officer, I’m convinced that the 1033 Program has been one of the single greatest contributors to the public losing trust in law enforcement. 

Scrapping Executive Order 13688 means police departments will again have unfettered access to high caliber guns, grenade launchers, and armored vehicles, among other forms of military equipment. During a time when criminal justice and police reform have bipartisan support, this decision shows a clear misunderstanding both of what Americans want and, more perilously, of what’s truly effective at improving public safety.

Scenes from Ferguson, Missouri, helped create better awareness of the 1033 Program throughout the country. The public demanded to know why police who were sent to keep the peace during a protest were indistinguishable from soldiers at war. This is not the peace officer I was trained to be when I joined the force.

Beyond causing terror in individuals and families whose homes are raided with police armed with military weapons, the use of such equipment for regular police work damages police-community relations. Militarization has eroded public trust in police, the effectiveness of law enforcement overall, and ultimately, public safety.  

Officers need to engage in crime prevention and crime fighting activities that work. They do not need to participate in programs that waste resources and create dangerous situations for both law enforcement and the public. In the SWAT raids studied by the ACLU for its 2013 report, War Comes Home, 79 percent of SWAT deployments were issued to execute search warrants, mostly for drugs. Somewhere between 36 and 65 percent of those drug searches resulted in no discovery of illegal contraband. Even if everything goes smoothly and nobody gets injured or killed during a raid, it’s still an enormous waste of time and extremely dangerous for both officers and civilians.

An all-too-common SWAT scenario is one where SWAT’s involvement escalates a nonviolent situation into a deadly one. Imagine that you are awoken at dawn by the sound of men shouting and battering down your door. You can’t hear what the voices are saying, but you realize your home is being invaded. Your instinct tells you to grab your lawfully owned gun and face the intruders. You race downstairs and make it to the front door only to find the intruders are police – and they think you have drugs. The police are scared of an armed man running toward them, and you’re barely awake. You’re confused. And then shots are fired. Nobody remembers who pulled the trigger first.  

With each of these incidents, public trust in the police erodes. Research shows people who don’t trust police are less likely to report a crime, and I can tell you from experience it makes them much less likely to cooperate in investigations. Without the community to help us, police work — the hard work of solving rapes and homicides and kidnappings — becomes nearly impossible.  This means our “crime reduction” strategy of deploying SWAT teams is paradoxically creating an environment in which it’s harder for police to solve crimes and protect people.

My philosophy is instead guided by the Nine Principles of Policing set forth by Sir Robert Peel and his commissioners nearly 200 years ago, which have set the standard ever since. The very first principle is “to prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force….” I support replacing the 1033 Program with one in which officers must demonstrate competence, be trained in proper equipment usage, and may only use military equipment for hostage, active shooter, and barricade scenarios.  I believe this because I became a police officer to protect people. When people fear the police more than they fear crime itself, the legitimacy of the career I loved so much becomes meaningless.

The ACLU's Open Letter To Donald Trump

The image above is of a full page ad the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took out in the New York Times. It is an open letter to Donald Trump. It Says:

“Dear President-Elect Trump,

For nearly 100 years, the ACLU has stood as this nation’s premier defender of freedom and justice for all.

As you assume the nation’s highest office, we must ask you now as president-elect to reconsider and change course on certain campaign promises you have made.

Specifically, you promised to:

• amass deportation force to remove 11 million undocumented immigrants
• ban the entry of Muslims and institute aggressive surveillance programs targeting them
• restrict a woman’s right to abortion services
• reauthorize waterboarding and other forms of torture
• change our nation’s libel laws and restrict freedom of expression”

“These proposals are not simply un-American and wrong-headed. They are unlawful and unconstitutional, and would violate the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution, as well as other statutes and international treaties.”

“Many of our country’s most cherished rights are the result of ACLU litigation and advocacy. They include the Scopes trial (the right to teach evolution in public science classrooms) and the following Supreme Court cases: Korematsu (challenging Japanese American internment); Miranda (the right to remain silent); Griswold (the right to contraception); Loving (the right of interracial couples to marry); Gideon (the right to a court-appointed attorney if you can’t afford one); Windsor (striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act); and Obergefell (the right of same-sex couples to marry) and others. We have worked with and battled American presidents of both parties to ensure that our country makes good on it’s founding premise as the land of the free.”

“If you do not reverse course and endeavor to make these campaign promises a reality, you will have to contend with the full firepower of the ACLU at your every step. Our staff of litigators and activists in every state, thousands of volunteers, and millions of supporters stand ready to fight against any encroachment on our cherished freedoms and rights.”

“One thing is certain: We will be vigilant every day of your tenure as president. And when you ultimately vacate the Oval Office, we will do likewise with your successor.”

Defending Press Freedom Against Police Repression

This post was written by Lee Rowland (who is an attorney with the ACLU's Speech, privacy, and Technology Project). It has appeared on Politico and on the ACLU's website. It is an important piece, and should be read by anyone who loves the First Amendment (especially the free speech and free press parts). Rowland writes:

Tear gas, rubber bullets, and assault weapons; free speech zones, gags, and press pens: This is the arsenal of the police state. Some of these tactics are physical. The other ones—all the more pernicious for their quiet coercion—impose a veil of silence over the actions of law enforcement. And each of these weapons has been unleashed on the people of Ferguson, Missouri, since the killing of Michael Brown.

In the first few nights of protest, Ferguson and St. Louis County police responded with a truly inconceivable show of force. Officers suited up in DHS-funded military hand-me-downs, outfitted with goggles, machine guns, sniper rifles, riot gear and gas masks. Distressing warzone-like images flickered into the public consciousness: photos of armed police cohorts pointing loaded automatic weapons at citizens with their hands in the air, women and children's faces streaming with tear gas and milk and white officers targeting black protesters like it's Selma circa 1964.

The message was clear: The public is the enemy. And as we the people started getting that message, Ferguson starting working harder to shoot the messengers.

Police repeatedly ordered protesters to turn off cameras and cell phones recording law enforcement. In response, the ACLU of Missouri had to go into court to seek an emergency agreement reminding the police that photographing them is a constitutionally protected right. Roving SWAT teams, perplexingly, raided a McDonald's and arrested two journalists engaged in the suspicious act of recharging their phones. Police aimed tear gas canisters directly at members of the press. A local news crew caught police riding up afterwards and disassembling another crew's media equipment.

Then came more systemic approaches to shutting down the speech of the public and the press. First: a nighttime curfew, applied to a broad area, whose details were obscure and seemingly applied ad hoc on the ground. Of the seven people arrested that night, three claim to have been on their own driveway. Of course, since journalists were subject to the curfew, we don't have a lot of objective facts about what happened in those wee hours.

That curfew only lasted a few days. It was then replaced by a "no standing" rule of dubious origin and authority, under which police threatened the arrest of anyone who stood still for more than 5 seconds, day or night. That also included press. CNN's Don Lemon was pushed along the sidewalk on live television, after being told by authorities to be exactly where he was. As he rightly said to his audience: "Imagine what they are doing to people when [sic] you don't see on national television, the people who don't have a voice like we do."

However, reporters were allowed to stand still—so long as they stayed in the "press pen," a designated space so far off from the action between the cops and the protesters that reporters who tried to witness anything of consequence were tear gassed. And the police didn't hesitate to show they meant business, arresting Getty photographer Scott Olson when he strayed. Like other reporters arrested, he too was promptly released without a report or charges. The point of these repeat press arrests appears to be preventing accountability, not protecting public safety.

And officials have insisted they're not stopping.

The ACLU again went into court on an emergency basis to challenge the 5-second rule. The court declined to shut it down, relying on the state attorney general's word that the city had set aside a designated "free speech zone," which provided ample opportunities for protest. But when ACLU of Missouri staff went to confirm that description after the hearing, the area was empty and off-limits to the public. As of yesterday, the state did ensure the area was open, but it's totally inadequate. Removed from the symbolic location of Michael Brown's death, isolated and sterile, the "free speech zone" is truly where free speech goes to die. And it means that the rest of Ferguson is officially a speech-free zone.

Each of these tactics is an unconstitutional restriction on the rights of speech and assembly in its own right. But this constantly changing whirlwind of restrictions further deepens the constitutional sinkhole Ferguson has become. When residents are bewildered as to when, where, and how they can gather and speak without risking arrest, that uncertainty itself casts a shadow of intimidation and self-censorship across the right of free speech. And of course, that uncertainty is often happening at the business end of a high-powered rifle.

So why, especially in light of our strong First Amendment traditions regularly upheld by the courts, has Ferguson discarded the First Amendment? Perhaps it's because the stakes are so high.

The more news and images we see streaming out of Ferguson, the more we have visceral evidence of the systemic problems of race, inequality, militarization and an us-versus-them cop mentality that are fueling continued protest and righteous outrage. And the more we know about Ferguson, the more concern we should have. Anastoundingly non-diverse police department. Financial incentives to over-enforce minor infractions. Charging a victim of police brutality for getting blood on officers' clothing. These aren't mere anecdotes. They are threads in the fabric of a truth we the people have a right – a duty – to reveal and unravel.

As our Supreme Court recognized in Roth v. United States, "The protection given speech and press was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people."

There is much political and social change desired by the people in Ferguson, and throughout our country. Not one more unarmed young black man should die at the hands of the police. Not one more local police force should get financial incentives to militarize and mobilize against its own citizens. Not one more photographer should risk arrest by doing her job. The iconic images coming out of Ferguson illustrate the urgency of change.

So we the people must give thanks. We give thanks to the journalists who have been zip-tied in the fight for transparency. We give thanks to the tweeters who crowdsource the eyes and ears of America. We give thanks to those on the streets of Ferguson who lift up their camera phones to bear witness to the truth in real time. Because they are the agents of the change we must all seek together.

Our words, our voices, and our pictures are the most devastating weapons of all to entrenched systems of injustice: systems that led to the death of Michael Brown and to the anger it spawned.

NOTE -- I don't know who took the above picture, but I found it on the blog of the wonderful Juanita Jean (owner of the world's most dangerous beauty salon).

Is Maryland Ready To Legalize Marijuana ?

It looks like the forces of sanity may finally be getting to be a majority in another state -- Maryland. Maryland may soon join the growing list of states that have decriminalized marijuana use (make possession of small amounts just worth a ticket rather than an arrest & jail sentence). And that state may even take the further step of legalizing the recreational use of the gentle herb soon.

At least, the results of a new ACLU/Public Policy Polling Survey (which recently surveyed 678 Maryland residents, with a 3.8 point margin of error) makes it look like that's what a growing number (and now a majority) of people in Maryland would like to see happen. The poll was released last Thursday.

Back in 2011, when this survey was previously done, about 57% of the state's population wanted marijuana decriminalized and about 40% supported its complete legalization. Those figures have grown in the last two years. Now about 68% are in favor of decriminalization, and a majority (53%) now support legalization. That's real progress.

I applaud the people of Maryland, and wish people in more states would wake up to the truth -- and realize that the federal government has been lying to them about marijuana for decades now. There is no legitimate reason for it to be illegal, and plenty of reasons why it should be legal. It is much safer than other legal drugs, and could provide a real boon to our society in job creation and taxation.

ACLU Challenges GOP On Voter Fraud

Stae after state controlled by Republicans have recently passed new "Voter ID" laws -- laws that would require a voter to submit a government-issued picture ID in addition to a voter registration card. The Republicans say it is to prevent voter fraud, but Democrats say it is to suppress the vote. Democrats point out that the percentage of voters nationwide without a government-issued photo ID could be as high as 11% of the population (or about 21 million people), and most of those are in groups that normally vote for Democrats.

Republicans have inflated claims of supposed voter fraud to get these laws passed. A good example is in South Carolina, where the Attorney General claimed over 900 "dead" people had voted in that state. They even provided six names off their list of dead voters. The only problem is that five of the names turned out to be still alive, and the sixth had died after she voted. They have still been unable to verify their claim. And it is the same in state after state.

Now the Minnesota Republicans want a Voter ID law. But the ACLU of Minnesota has had enough of the false claims to suppress votes. They have offered $1000 to anyone who can show a single case of voter fraud that has been prosecuted in the state in the last 10 years.

The state ACLU admits there is a small number of one kind of voter fraud -- convicted felons voting before they have finished their parole. But that is already illegal, and it could not be prevented by requiring an ID -- since there is nothing that prevents these people from having a government-issued photo ID card (like a driver's license).

The kind of voter fraud the Republican law would prevent is someone voting as someone else. The Brennan Center for Justice (at the New York University School of Law) examined this issue. They found that this kind of voter fraud is irrational and very rare, that purported claims of fraud are usually proven to be false, and that some claims of fraud are really just due to mistakes made by poll workers.

The truth is that there is no widespread (or even small-scale) problem of voter fraud in this country, and the new Voter ID laws do nothing but make it harder for some people to vote. I applaud the ACLU of Minnesota, and I'll bet they won't have to pay out on that $1000 challenge. Republicans have been lying so they can suppress Democratic votes, but then lying is nothing new for Republicans. I think it is one of their most important "values".

Is Mojave Cross Constitutional ?

An 8 foot cross has stood atop Sunrise Rock in the Mojave National Preserve since 1934. It was supposedly erected to honor America's soldiers in World War I. But is it really proper to erect a religious symbol in a National Preserve or Park, especially since the Park Service turned down a request to erect a Buddhist monument nearby?

That is the question that was being discussed by the United States Supreme Court yesterday. A former National Park Service employee felt it was inappropriate for the National Preserve to favor one religion over others, and took the matter to court. A federal judge and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the display was unconstitutional, and the government appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Obama administration supports leaving the cross in the park. As much as I respect President Obama, I have to disagree with him on this one. I have no problem with a memorial honoring World War I soldiers being in the preserve, but why does it have to be a christian symbol (and the cross is recognized worldwide as a christian symbol).

Christians would be opposed to the memorial being a religious symbol from any other religion, so I really don't understand why they think it's OK to force their own symbol on Americans who believe in other religions. Personally, as an atheist, I don't believe symbols of any religion should be placed on government land.

In an attempt to do an end run around the Constitution, the National Preserve has transferred ownership of the cross and the bit of land underneath it to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). This is not real ownership, because the VFW can't sell the land and if they remove or fail to provide upkeep on the cross, the land will revert back to the National Preserve.

The ACLU argued that the cross is the predominant symbol of christianity and should not be treated as a single, favored religious symbol. Judge Scalia tried to argue that the cross didn't just represent christian soldiers, but was a "common symbol" to honor war dead.

That's a ridiculous argument. One look at national cemeteries for war dead shows that crosses are used for christian dead, while other symbols are used for those of a different faith. There is even a designated symbol for atheists.

No matter how long the cross has stood in the Mojave National Preserve, it should be removed. Allowing only a christian symbol amount to government designating a favorite or "official" religion, and that is unconstitutional.

Americans practice many faiths, and many practice no religion at all. Their tax money helps support the National Park System, and they should not be forced to support someone else's religion.

Hispanic Students Singled Out In Gainesville

This story about Gainesville High School hit home with me, because I lived in that city for several years and liked it very much. My son started his school career in Gainesville back in the 1980s and it seemed to be a good school system. If this story is true, then things have changed.

Gainesville is a small and beautiful city of about 15,000 residents. It is located about 90 miles north of Dallas and less than ten miles south of the Oklahoma border. It is the county seat of Cooke County (one of only four counties in Texas that voted to stay in the Union during the Civil War).

But the Gainesville Independent School District is currently being investigated by the Texas ACLU. The ACLU has requested all information on school assemblies this year. That's because some Hispanics are saying that Hispanics were singled out and brought to an assembly at the school, where Hispanics were accused of causing the school's unacceptable rating by scoring too low on their TAKS tests.

Hispanic parents believe that singling out Hispanic students for the assembly and accusation was racist behavior (and it certainly sounds that way). One of the parents, who's daughter is an honors student, said, "She felt like it should have been an assembly that was inclusive of the whole student body. I totally agree; I don't believe in segregated meetings. To me, it's a simple misunderstanding that they were discriminating against people."

Personally, I think it was not only racist, but stupid. The group of Hispanic freshmen they gathered in the assembly were not even in high school when the last TAKS test was given. They were in middle school, and their middle school received an acceptable rating from the Texas Education Agency (TEA).

Also, according to the TEA, Gainesville High School students did well enough on the TAKS test to be rated acceptable. The unacceptable rating was not given for low TAKS test scores, but for not maintaining a 75% graduation rate among all groups. Hispanics had a 73.3% graduation rate, but how can incoming freshmen be blamed for that?

This was simply a bone-headed move by one or more high school officials. If the school board is smart, they'll take disciplinary action against this official (or officials) and make sure it never happens again.

Boeing Aided in "Extraordinary Rendition" Flights

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit yesterday against a subsidiary of Boeing Commercial Aviation Services in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. They are accusing Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. of helping the CIA in its "extraordinary rendition" flights to take prisoners to other countries so they can be tortured.

Executive director of the ACLU Anthony Romero said, "American corporations should not be profiting from a CIA rendition program that is unlawful and contrary to core American values. Corporations that choose to participate in such activity can and should be held legally accountable."

The ACLU said Jeppesen was a "main provider of flight and logistical support services for aircraft used by the CIA in the U.S. government's extraordinary rendition program". The lawsuit was filed under the Alien Tort Statute, which allows aliens to bring claims in U.S. courts for violations of international law or treaties.

I applaud the ACLU for this action. Just like individuals, corporations are responsible for their actions. These rendition flights to enable the torture of people the Bush administration doesn't like, are both morally and legally wrong.

I'm sure there are some who would argue that Jeppesen was just trying to make a profit, and shouldn't be held responsible for decisions made by the government. But that argument doesn't hold water.

During the Nuremburg trials at the end of World War II, the Allies, including the United States, made it clear that all major participants in violations of international law are guilty -- not just the decision-makers.

The Boeing subsidiary violated both legal and moral laws by their participation in these foul deeds. They must be held responsible.

Burnam Kills "Homeland Security" Bill

The Homeland Security bill seemed to be gliding easily toward passage in the legislature, even though it was opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU thought it would put too much new power in the governor's office and politicized the homeland security issue.

That changed yesterday, as Rep. Lon Burnam (D-Ft. Worth) killed the bill on a point of order. He said that he and others believed the bill would curtail some civil liberties.

The bill's author, Rep. David Swinford (R-Dumas), was quick to claim this move would cost the state of Texas millions of dollars in homeland security grants. Rep. Burnam said it would not. I have to believe Burnam on this one.

Whatever the federal government wants to do on homeland security, the one thing they cannot do is leave Texas out. Leaving Texas out of any formula to do anything with our southern border, leaves a big enough gap to make any proposal a joke. Texas must be included in any discussion of border security.

There is still a small chance the bill will be revived. Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas) is trying to revive the bill in the senate. To do so, he must strip the bill of all 14 senate amendments and then get it passed by a "super majority" of the senate. At this point, it's anybody's guess as to whether that can be done.

Many Republicans have spent this legislative session jumping on the anti-immigrant bandwagon. But the truth is that Texas gains more from its immigrants than it loses (even the ones that come here illegally). They provide a huge economic boon that far outweighs the few government dollars spent on them.

The Republican war against brown people is not only bigoted, it is stupid. It will hurt Texas economically and worsen our relations with Mexico.

Hopefully, there are enough senators to keep this bill in its freshly dug grave. Then we can turn our attention to killing federal efforts to harm our southern border, including the ridiculous wall and the terrible new immigration bill.

ACLU Sues Louisiana School Pushing Religion

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has struck another blow for religious freedom in America. This time, they have filed suit against a public school in Louisiana.

They have had to file suit against this Tangipahoa Parish school four times in the past. Evidently the people in that parish have a real hard time understanding the concept of religious freedom.

A lot of evangelical christians think our public schools are nothing more than a recruiting ground for their twisted view of religion. These same people would be horrified if another religion tried to force their views on their school children, but they see nothing wrong with doing it themselves.

They are being taken to court this time because they were passing out Gideon Bibles to all elementary students in school during school hours. The lawsuit tells of the entire fifth-grade class being lined up in front of the school office during school hours, where each was given a Bible and told "God bless you".

The ACLU was approached by some parents who said their daughter was placed in a situation where she felt coerced into taking the Bible out of a fear of being criticized, ridiculed or ostracized if she did not.

Joe Cook, executive director of Louisiana's ACLU, said, "School officials in Tangipahoa Parish habitually show disdain for the Constitution, while disrespecting the right of parents, who happen to be Catholic in this case, to choose the religious tradition in which to raise their children."

It is time that evangelicals learn that students with many different religious backgrounds (including no religious background) are forced by law to attend a public school. The parents of these children have the right to teach their children their own traditions (including religion) without interference from others. That is what religious freedom is all about.

But many evangelicals don't seem to understand this. They have somehow gotten the idea that religious freedom means they can force their religion on others and the children of others.

Thank goodness we have the ACLU to stand up for our Constitution and our freedoms.